Hey,
what are you trying to say
I know you're out there
lost in thoughts sublime
find me the words to play
only with you I share
my reason or rhyme
TjenArt-I-Sea-Wings, 2017
How good do we know the inner minds of those we are close with? In the same vein, do we share our inner selves with others? Often we share only what we want others to see. We have an outer-self and an inner-self. Our outer self is how we want others to see us. It is how we behave in our roles or jobs, it is what we call our personality. We often think that the more friends we have (virtual and real), the more popular and the more rich our lives are. Nothing could be further from the truth. In extreme cases we see celebrities whose complete identity is external. We look up to them as role models and examples of success: beautiful, rich, famous, powerful, popular, with gorgeous partners. However, a disproportionate number of these role models have lost themselves to substance abuse, sex and depression, even to the point of suicide. We don’t understand this, because in our view these celebrities have everything we are striving for in this world. Yet, the outward world never satisfies, is never enough. Those who have invested everything into their personality have lost themselves, they exist but are unconscious.
Your richness is not found outside and neither is love. We tend to search in the wrong places for what brings us happiness. In all our busy-ness, we avoid being alone. Being alone is the antithesis of being popular and rich on the outside, hence we escape it at all cost. The silence of being alone without distractions is for most people too oppressing and distressing. Yet, all that we need to discover and learn, to create a rich life filled with Joy, is inside of us. To reach for our inner lives we need to venture deep into our thoughts, emotions and being. It connects us with our spirit. Most of us do not dare to look deeper and even deny the being inside.
We rather look outward to search what life can give us so that we will be happy. We hope to find it in worldly success or in our relationships. Instead, we ought to look inside ourselves to discover what we can give to life. And until we have come face-to-face and eye-to-eye with who we are in all our naked loneliness, we are not ready to give. We think that we accept who we are, but often that is our ego talking and who we are talking to. If we have not fully accepted ourselves with all our limitations and flaws, how can we ever fully accept someone else?
These are the parts of our inner selves that we seldom or never share with anyone else. To open up would expose a vulnerability and weakness that we rather hide under a cloak of social aptness. But what if we would dare to share our most private thoughts, feelings and wishes? Not with anyone, but with someone very special, someone who would in return have courage to drop his or her armour and be vulnerable. That is intimacy. That trust is love. It is obtained by finding your being within you with all its imperfections and giving it to your Beloved.